


Beside You, Til Death Do Us Part

by DawnLight20



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:33:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25708993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DawnLight20/pseuds/DawnLight20
Summary: Kei had thought for the longest time that he was unlovable. That all changed when an upperclassman with crazy bed hair( you all know who he is ) entered his life.
Relationships: Kuroo Tetsurou/Tsukishima Kei
Comments: 4
Kudos: 53





	Beside You, Til Death Do Us Part

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone! This work contains spoilers from the manga, so anyone who hasn't watched or read it can avoid it. It doesn't directly affect the story and I will mark it with *** at both the beginning and the end so u can avoid it.
> 
> If u have read it though then please note that I haven't actually read the manga that far and so have no clue of how the duration of the match goes, or of any interactions that happens and i only know the end result. Therefore I will not be able to include them in the story and for that I apologise.
> 
> If you don't mind it though, then by all means, keep reading!!

For the longest time, Kei had thought he was unlovable. He couldn't remember his father, only being told his father had left them when Kei had been three years old. For as long as he could remember it had been him, his mother and his brother. That was fine with him though. The boys in his class made fun of him for not having a father but he didn't care, he had his brother after all.

It had always been his brother who was there for him. When he got hurt by tripping, he was the to dust his knees and comfort him. When his classmates made fun of him for being too tall and having blonde hair despite being a Japanese, it was ok because his brother was there for him. When he had made a friend in yamaguchi, his brother had been happier than he had been.

He had never once made his brother disappointed in him and he never thought he would. What he didn't know though was that it would be him who would be disappointed. When his brother had told him he was the ace of Karasuno, he had believed him. Of course he had, his brother was a good player and he had never once thought his brother would lie to him.( he had been wrong.)

So he continued to admire his brother and made no attempt to hide that fact. He didn't know what had compelled him to go to that match but he would forever regret that decision. Seeing his brother in the stands and not on the court, even on the bench had been a massive shock.

He watched, numb to everything around him as his brother realized all his lies had been caught and break down. The lesson Kei learnt from it was to never let anyone close enough that they could hurt him.

So he became closed off, choosing to spend the rest of his middle school lost in music and his studies. He would have lost the only friend he ever had too, if yamaguchi hadn't been stubborn enough to stand at his side despite his now cold and sarcastic nature. He had since then made the promise to himself that he would not care about another person ever again( he didn't know then, just how quickly he would break that promise).

When he had enrolled in Karasuno, he had imagined his life would be filled with his studies and the minimum effort he would need to put into his club activities. So entering the gym to come face to face with the king of the court and a orange haired shrimpy has been a surprise. To mask it, he did what he does best, provoke them.

Being in a club with two loud mouthed idiots will be annoying, he decided after a few days, but he also knew he was quite capable of ignoring them. As a result, his only shock had been the impossible quick that the weirdo duo could pull off. His thoughts remained the same even after meeting the third year ace and second year libero. After all, what could change.

When takeda-sensei had informed them of their training camp and their match against Nekoma, who was apparently their long time rival and later on,when he had introduced the owner of Sakanoshita store as their coach, Kei had been intrigued and a bit surprised. Still he had taken it in stride, because no matter how amusing it was to watch his seniors and year mates make fools of themselves, it was getting a bit repetitive.

When he made met the other team and played against them, he had readily admitted to himself that Nekoma was good. Their receives were solid, their blocks were good and their setter knew what he was doing. While Kageyama worked on instinct, Nekoma's setter calculated his each and every move. It had been a good few practice matches, though how the shrimpy could move, let alone run around requesting another match, he didn't know.

It had been during the clean up duty when the other boy had first spoken to him. He had been watching hinata and the other team's middle blocker jump around talking in gibberish and had not noticed the other's presence before he had spoken.

He had been surprised and had answered the older boy without even thinking of ignoring him. His sighed comment of youth like he was an old man had only served to further irritate Kei at the moment. But the week had gone by with no other incidents to speak of, and they had returned to school in time for the inter-high preliminaries.

Winning all their matches only to lose to Aoba Johsai in the semi finals by one point even after everyone gave their all only served to strengthen Kei's determination to not get too involved with volleyball. To him, getting too invested meant getting hurt. Still even he felt a little down watching the four third years trying to decide weather they would retire or stay.

Then came the training camp. The first problem came when they realised that four of their members might fail, especially their first year duo and Kei had to help the two idiots study against his will. Doing so proved to be a huge pain, considering how bad they were in their studies. Thankfully, the first year manager hopeful had done a better job of helping them, and Kei was free to have his own time back.

Kageyama and hinata had still failed their exams though and so the Karasuno team made their way to the training camp without them, with the promise that Tanaka's sister would get them to Tokyo as soon as possible. By the time they had managed to join the practice, the team had already lost several matches. With the impossible quick of the weird duo, they had managed to win that match, though they were back to losing and serving penalties before long.

It had already been a tiring day and having Yamaguchi yell at him when he had never done so rattled Kei a lot, and that's the excuse he provided to himself when he rose to Kuroo's provocations and accepted to help them practice. Bokuto's overenthusiasm about spiking against one blocker grated on Kei's nerves, but he quickly shut up when Kuroo managed to block his spike on the first try and for that, Kei was thankful.

As time went by in the training camp, Kei joined his seniors in the third gym after practice, eventually being joined by Hinata and Lev. He received blocking advise from Kuroo and tried to implement them in their daytime practices.

When Bokuto and Kuroo had confronted him about his lackluster effort, he had said the truth he felt was right. Hinata was better than him, even though he was shorter than him and his basics sucked. Being told he sucked hurt though, no matter how much he knew it was true. After all hadn't he himself promised not to give his all?

Even so, the provocation worked, and Kei started to slowly try a little bit more. Though he doubted the moment bokuto had spoken of would come, he decided to try. It would be slow going of course, but it was better than nothing.

When the announcement of barbecue was given, he sort of liked the idea, but so much that he would break out into weird dance moves like some people. Eventually practice had ended, and almost one hundred hungry teenage boys had leapt at the food like there was no tomorrow.

Kei had taken his part and sat down on the steps of some stairs, his back towards the Nekoma setter who seemed quite occupied with the game in his hands. Somehow though, his own captain had wondered over to try and force more food on him, and he had been joined by both the Fukurodani captain and the Nekoma captain, who proceeded to force feed his own setter while still lecturing both of them on the importance of eating good food.

After leaving the training camp, they had to immediately get ready for the spring tournament preliminaries, and even though they faced interesting opponents, Kei had played like he always did and they won. Even when Daichi had gotten injured, and they had to play a full set against Aoba Johsai, Kei's growth had been overshadowed by that of yamaguchi, and he was happy to keep it that way.

Everything about volleyball changed for Kei when they played against Shiratorizawa. Saying he would try to stop Ushiwaka's spikes had been half about pride, half that he had really believed it. Still to think he would manage to do it and find his moment at the same time wasn't something even Kei had predicted. But he had, and for the rest of the match he had ridden those feelings.

That night when his phone had been blown up by both Kuroo and Bokuto( and to a smaller portion, by Akaashi as well ) he found he had not minded, instead liking the fact that someone had cared enough about him to watch. For Kei, that day had been memorable to him for various reasons.

Kuroo's habit of blowing up his phone didn't stop and as he no longer had matches to worry about, he found that he didn't really have an excuse to avoid texting with the Nekoma third year. So slowly, gradually he began to respond. It was annoying at first, how much the other would text him, at all times of the day and about anything and everything, but he got used to it. Rather quickly too, considering how much Kei didn't like changes.

Their communication got a little slow as the tokyo spring tournament preliminaries approached, Kuroo's time getting more and more occupied with practice. That didn't mean Kuroo stopped texting though, and Kei kept responding.

When Kuroo had called him for the first time, it had been the evening of when Nekoma had won the match against Nohebi. They talked about the match, and eventually about other things, and when Kei went to sleep that night, he found he didn't mind having another friend. The next time they met, it had been the opening ceremonies.

***Their match against each other had been exhilarating and when Karasuno had won, Kei had hardly been able to believe it. The handshakes and greeting the audience had flown by before Kei had managed to fix himself and by then they were heading back to the inn. Their communication had not suffered though, and when Karasuno had lost in the quaterfinals, Kuroo had still the same old.***

After returning home, it had been attending finals, and the retirement and graduation of the third years. Many tears had flown that day, and even though Kei had shed none, he would still miss them.

In Tokyo the same was happening, and their third gym group chat which consisted of Kei, Kuroo, Bokuto and Akaashi was being filled with the plans of the third years and what they would be doing from now. Kuroo would be studying biochemistry in Tokyo university and Bokuto's plans had gotten buried somewhere in his typing.

The next year arrived, with Ennoshita being as strict a captain as Daichi had been, with no one to counterbalance him like Sugawara did. With them also came new first years. Aside from that only two major events worth mentioning in Kei's mind had happened.

The first one had been Kuroo and Bokuto crashing their Tokyo training camp along with some of the other former third years. This seemed to cheer up Akaashi more than Kei, the now third year who had been missing his boyfriend he had not seen in a week due to an away match Bokuto had and then the training camp Akaashi had.

This had allowed Kuroo and Kei to have some time alone( not that anything had happened, this is not the moment people), as Yaku had disappeared with lev and the others were in the other gym.Kuroo had been acting strange which if Kei had noticed, then didn't mention.

The other had been Yamaguchi finally asking Yachi out. The pinch server had realized early in the year that he had feelings for his fellow year mate but lacked the courage to confess. In the meantime, Kei had heard Yamaguchi talk about Yachi too much to count and was very happy that his best friend had managed to ask Yachi out before the year had ended. That year they had to say goodbye to the five third years and no one had perhaps been more sad then Hinata.

As the new year rolled in, so did new first years and they had become third years. Being third years came with its own pressure, especially since Kei had been made vice captain of the club. Aside from that was the preparation for college and career options and the usual problems.

The third year was also memorable for Kei for one other reason, that reason being his realization that his feelings for Kuroo was nowhere near the same kind that he had for Yamaguchi, and his panic on that matter.

Kei had never fallen in love before, his disregard for the people around him had ensured that. But somehow this provocative man with that crazy bed hair and that smirk had managed to get through all the barriers that Kei had and had captured his heart without him even realizing it. Kei's panic had caught the attention of both Yamaguchi and Yachi( someone else he now found calling his friend) and they had calmed him down and helped him make a plan.

The timing of his realization fell very close to their timing for attending the Tokyo training camp and it was decided that that would be when he would confess. He would ask Kuroo to meet him in the camp and if things went sideways Kei wouldn't have to face the elder again. (Not that the other two thought that would happen, considering they had seen the glances Kuroo had stolen at Kei.)

Unbeknownst to Kei, this was also the year that Akaashi, Bokuto and Yaku( Kuroo's roommate) had managed to convince Kuroo to confess to the salty third year during the training camp. When the training camp had started, Kei had began to spend his after practice time in the third gym alone, simply doing serves or cooling down.

So he had no idea that Kuroo and the others had crashed the training camp one day earlier than expected. Yamaguchi, the ever helpful person, had managed to inform Kuroo of Kei's whereabouts before he could be swarmed by the underclassmen and promised to give them time alone to talk.

When Kuroo had entered the third gym, it had been to find Kei in the middle of his stretches and though Kei would never admit it, had caught Kei quite by surprise. He had started stuttering and couldn't help the light blush that now dusted his pale cheeks. Kuroo had found this cute and had accidently said it out loud.

That brought about another round of blushing, this time on both their parts but they had eventually calmed down, and as Kuroo started helping Kei with clean up, they slowly fell back to the familiarity they had with each other.

It had been when they had just brought the net back to the store room, watching Kei wipe his face with the towel hanging around his neck that Kuroo had blurted out his feelings. "I love you", he had said, and Kei had frozen for a second before slowly turning his face to look at the other. "What did you say?", Kei had asked, and Kuroo, thinking the damage had been done, had repeated the words he had wanted to say for over a year.

Kei hadn't responded at first, standing there with an unreadable expression in his face, before he had suddenly, laughed of all things. Kuroo had flinched at that and waited for the cutting words he knew would come. Instead, when he had opened his eyes at a soft touch on his jaw, not realizing when he had closed them, it had been to see a smile on Kei's face and his usually so cold eyes soft and shining, moments before the younger had kissed him.

Kuroo had obviously frozen for a few seconds before reciprocating, and when they had pulled back to take a breath Kei had said those words back at him. Kuroo had let out a sigh of relief and Kei had softly laughed again before asking, if it had truly been do nerve wreaking.

Kuroo had nodded and said,"But the result is more than worth it." Kei's blush had been hidden under Kuroo's hands as they came up to cradle Kei's face between them, before the older had connected their lips in a kiss once again.

They had spent the next hour like this, talking and exchanging affections when their friends had come to look for them. They enjoyed the teasing from their friends, and before Kuroo left that night, he had informed Kei of the coaches decision to ask the former players to help out. That night, when Kei went to sleep he thought he had never been happier.

Life didn't get better of course, but it got easier. Their routine stayed the same, with some changes here and there. Now they talked over the phone and the screen and their texts held much more signs of affection than before. They would sometimes go over to each other's place on weekends when they had time, which allowed Kuroo to become familiar with both Kei's mother and brother, who were just happy Kuroo made Kei happy.

There had been some misgivings with Kuroo's family, considering Tetsurou was their only child but in the end their son's happiness was the most important thing to them. In such a way the year ended, and Kei, who had gotten admittance in Tokyo University to study paleontology was able to move in with Kuroo, Yaku moving out to get an apartment together with Lev.

Yamaguchi and Yachi stayed in Miyagi, while Bokuto and Akaashi attended a different university in Tokyo but they lived near, considering Akaashi had gotten a job in a cafe, the same cafe where Kei would manage to work part time as well.

This didn't mean they were happy all the time. They had their arguments, both big and small, stupid and serious. Their first major argument had been in Kei's last year of university, Kuroo already a working member of the society. Kei couldn't remember what it had been about but their stress had gotten the better of them and they had both said hurtful words they didn't mean and Kuroo had even walked out.

He hadn't managed to go more than a single step away from their apartment though, and when he had entered back a minute after walking out, it had been to the sight of Kei on the kitchen floor, crying. They had promised to themselves to take it easy after that incident and to communicate with each other properly again, and after a week of awkwardness, everything was back to normal, or as normal as it can get.

Insecurities still reared their ugly heads though, sometimes Kuroo's or sometimes Kei's, but when it did, they learnt what the other needed and tried to help each other accordingly. That didn't mean there weren't accidents but as the years passed they became less and less in number.

Eventually they had gotten better jobs and had moved out of the small student apartment and closer to their workplaces, Kuroo joining a research facility and Kei a museum and an university as a guest lecturer.

Now, at the age of 27, as he stood in front of the alter, with their friends and family behind them, listening to Tetsurou vow to stand beside him, to care and love him for the rest of their lives, Tsukishima, soon to be Kuroo - Tsukishima, Kei could readily admit how wrong he had been all those years ago and fully embrace the future he had in front of him. It wouldn't all be happy but as long as he had his beloved beside him, he would be fine.

~~Beside You, Til Death Do Us Part~~


End file.
